


The Technical Process of Drowning

by ieroses



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Humor, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Pining, Relationship Issues, and more fluff and angst and humor for good measure, can u ever have too much i think not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-29
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-09 15:16:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3254480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ieroses/pseuds/ieroses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Most drowning victims don't yell or wave their arms to alert someone that they are in trouble. They are in a state of shock, and are often silent.</p><p>There are typically five stages to the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stage 1: Surprise

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter is, admittedly, short, but they get longer. I promise. 
> 
> As usual, I apologise for any issues or faults in my attempts at proof reading.

_* * *_

_Swan dive down eleven stories high_

_Hold your breath until you see the light_

_You can sink to the bottom of the sea_

_Just don't go without me_

_***_

**Stage 1: Surprise**

*****

 

John realises the first thing on a Tuesday.

 

He is sitting in his chair, newspaper unfolded on his lap, and Sherlock is there. Sherlock is there nattering to himself, pacing along the carpet and up and down the furniture, and John thinks Sherlock would probably walk up the walls and across the ceiling in the hunt for that new perspective if gravity weren’t the one thing he couldn’t defy.

 

Eventually Sherlock slumps onto his chair in irritated exasperation, and John watches through the space above the newspaper. With his head flopped back, Sherlock’s neck is stretched and exposed and so very pale. John goes back to trying to scan the newspaper. The sun moves two centimetres to the left and Sherlock huffs.

 

John reads, or more accurately pretends to read, another article, and Sherlock huffs again.

 

A car alarm goes off outside and after thirty seconds stops. Sherlock huffs for a third time.

 

“Bored?” John says.

 

Sherlock gives a ridged nod. “Bored.”

 

“Well, why don’t you try and find something to do?”

 

Sherlock sends John that look which says something between his usual ‘ _are you an absolute moron_ ’ and his publically lesser known ‘ _please, don’t be a moron, John, not you of all people_ ’.

 

“What about that experiment you were doing this morning? What was it… mould, or something?”

 

“Boring.”

 

“ _No_ ,” John gapes, “Mould, _boring_ , how could that _be_?”

 

Using dropped eyebrows and a slight frown, Sherlock tells John that he does not find his sarcasm amusing. It’s one of John’s favourite Sherlock expressions; it’s… endearing.

 

“How about we just try and relax for a bit? Or, well, you try and relax a bit, because I’m fine. We’ll start a new case tomorrow. Right now we could just, you know, hang.”

 

“Hang?” Sherlock’s ever active facial expressions take another switch as he cocks an eyebrow incredulously.

 

Folding his paper and shrugging, John continues, “Yeah, _hang_ … like a… sloth.”

 

Both eyebrows this time. “A… sloth?” The way Sherlock speaks, you’d think the word should be approached with trepidation before allowing it anywhere near your tongue.

 

With his bottom lip jutting out, John nods, not seeing a problem. “Yeah. I could make us some tea, we’ll shuffle over to that sofa and we’ll just watch a bit of telly… slothily.”

 

The detective continues to sit, flailed out on his chair, with an expression that proves he cannot believe he is actually having this conversation.

 

John slaps his hands on the arms of his chair as he pushes himself up and ambles to the kitchen. There is no movement from the living room as he makes the tea: kettle, bags, water, stir, milk and two sugars for Sherlock, just a tad bit of milk for him, natural, like biology, like clockwork, like breathing.

 

It’s no surprise to find a still stationary Sherlock in the leather chair as John walks back into the living room. He ignores the man in favour of setting both mugs down on the coffee table and sinking down on to the sofa. Using the remote, he switches the television on to _Bargain Hunt_. When he picks up his own mug again, the object is satisfyingly warm in his dry hands.

 

There is a slight shift in his friend as the long limbed man bends his neck at crooked angles to see what’s on telly, and then he drops again, sighing exaggeratedly. John hides a smirk behind the rim of his mug, knowing already how much Tim Wonnacott truly annoys Sherlock – probably more than Anderson did… maybe.

 

“If you want to change it, you’re going to have to come over here and do it yourself.”

 

The next sigh says something along the lines of ‘ _you hate me John, don’t you? You hate me, even though I did nothing to deserve this treatment at all’_.

 

John burns his tongue when he takes a sip of tea. Despite having attempted to hide it, Sherlock must have been able to tell, because there is the slightest hint of a smirk there somewhere on his bow mouth.

 

On the telly, Tim raves on about an apparently beautiful wooden picture frame. John thinks it’s gopping. Sherlock huffs.

 

The material of the sofa cracks against John’s limbs as he shifts to a more comfortable position. Sherlock huffs again.

 

Sherlock huffs a third time, and apparently this is breaking point.

 

He jumps from the chair with all the energy of a pent up puppy and John successfully does not react at all. John expects Sherlock to come and slouch down next to him, snatch over the remote and then down his tea in a few gulps.

 

Instead, Sherlock slouches _over_ him, limbs everywhere as his back leans heavily onto John’s body and John must try to hold out his tea to save it from falling victim to Sherlock’s expression of laziness.

 

“You do realise there is another person on this sofa, Sherlock.”

 

“Yes. Very observant of you, John, well done.” John presses his tongue against the back of his teeth in his ridged jaw.  

 

“Then what are you doing?”

 

Sherlock looks up at the blonde through his eyelashes, his totally serious expression contrasting so greatly against the looseness of his spread limbs. “I’m hanging… slothily.”

 

There is a moment of silence as John stares at Sherlock, processing. And then, just as Sherlock’s demeanour is about the crack, John bursts out laughing. Sherlock chuckles along until at some point they’ve stopped laughing and the channel has changed and Sherlock still hasn’t moved.

 

John doesn’t even do it consciously – he just does it. He shifts around on the sofa to accommodate Sherlock lying over him, and somehow the new position is perfectly comfortable and unquestionably right. Sherlock is tucked under his chin, lying across the sofa and therefore across most of John’s body. John has one arm along the back of the sofa, although the angle is difficult, so it slowly drops to find itself resting around Sherlock’s side.

 

 By the time Sherlock’s untouched tea is cold, John’s hand has found its way to fiddling with the shorter hairs at the back of the detectives neck, and Sherlock’s eyes are drooped and relaxed and John sits and smiles and looks at the dark curls and realises with a surprised but not so sudden startle –

 

 _I love you_.

 

*


	2. Stage 2: Involuntary Breath Holding

***

 

_You love the way the air moves. And now I can no longer breathe._

 

***

 

**Stage 2: Involuntary Breath Holding**

*****

The realisation doesn’t feel wrong. Far from it, in fact.

 

As soon as the words float through his brain, it’s like the first breath in again after rising to the surface. It’s like filling his lungs with air, filling his heart with blood. It’s like the satisfying weight of a gun in his hand, and the ache inside his thighs following a good chase.

 

It’s right.

 

That’s not to say John knows what to do about it though.

 

The air is held captive inside his lungs and heart, desperate to come out, but for the life of him, he can’t figure out how to let it escape.

 

The Tuesday comes to an end with Chinese takeaway and a ten at night phone call from Lestrade in desperate need of help. John’s hand makes it no further than the hairs at the nape of Sherlock’s neck, and his thoughts make it no further than a catch in the back of his throat.  

 

Sherlock doesn’t complain about being bored again, though. Not on that day.

 

After the Tuesday, life seems to tumble forward like a crashing wave. Case after client after case, all the while John fails to tread water beside Sherlock, the eight letters wrapping around his wrists and clenching the air inside his chest. Sherlock silently floats beside him, oblivious to the reasons for John’s apparent silence.

 

And so nothing changes around Baker Street.

 

*

 

The evenings of summer, to John, stay well beyond their welcome.

 

He finds that the way the sun clings to the edge of the day is desperate and annoying. He supposes it has more to do with his fondness for the dark more than anything else. It’s much easier to hide in the dark.

 

“Why don’t you go out with Mike, or… one of those people?”

 

John is surprised by the sound of Sherlock’s voice expressed into the metal plates of his microscope. When the blonde looks over, Sherlock doesn’t seem to have so much as inclined his head towards his flatmate.

 

“Why?” John asks, because Sherlock has never shown an interest in maintaining John’s social life before now.

 

Sherlock switches slides. “Because you’ve been staring out the window for exactly sixty two minutes now, and I was under the impression that such behaviour was disconcerting when coming from a person who is not me.”

 

“You’ve been paying attention?” John’s tone is unintentionally exposed in a way that bleeds invested emotion, and internally he can’t help but cringe.

 

Sherlock notices such hitch, of course, and looks up from his experiment. The sharp lines of his features soften as he zones his world into the universe of John’s presence. The detective blinks. “Of course.”

 

*

 

Every now and then, John’s eyes linger on Sherlock. He tries to stop, but well, everything about Sherlock is unstoppable – even the things he isn’t actually involved in, apparently.

 

They watch his calculating eyes during a case, his nimble fingers during an experiment, sometimes even his arse at the few opportune times. Sherlock doesn’t mention them, which confuses John since this is Sherlock – he must notice. That is at least until John realises he probably started these prolonged observations long ago, and it is only as his infatuation seems to hover at the forefront of his mind that he is aware of them himself. Sherlock is probably used to them, oblivious to their deeper and ever sinking meaning.

 

Because that is the problem – the sinking.

 

The problem is that with every shared smile, every kitchen explosion, every severed head in the fridge and every drag of a violin string, John falls deeper and deeper into a pit of hopeless, destroying, drowning love. And he doesn’t have enough control over his lungs to keep himself breathing through it.

 

*

 

“Hey, mate, are you okay?” Lestrade asks John one day. Sherlock is busy whirling around a crime scene and they’re standing off at the edge, trying not to get caught up in the tornado.

 

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” John isn’t defensive like he would be with most people, just mildly curious instead. Lestrade is one of the few people he trusts to understand his approach to emotions. They’re both the same, really; avoiding them is always best.

 

Lestrade crosses his arms over his chest and exhales as he leans against the wall beside John. Sherlock exclaims something loudly on the other side of the room that neither catch, but then Sherlock has sank back down into deductions before they have a chance to ask him anything more about it.

 

“Well, I don’t know, you’ve just been a bit… off, these past few weeks.”

 

“Really?” Even John’s voice is absent from the conversation, holding no hint of investment. His eyes follow the curving swirl of Sherlock’s coat as he takes an abrupt change in direction.

 

Hesitant, Lestrade opens and closes his mouth a few more times before deciding the best course of action, for once, might just be bluntly forwards.

 

“You need to stop watching him like you’re in mourning.”

 

It takes a few moments for the statement to sink in, but when it does, John does a mental double take.

 

“Mourning? What are you talking about?”

 

“I mean,” Lestrade scrubs a hand over his face, “Whenever he’s not paying attention, you look at him like a fucking broken puppy or something. It isn’t fair on you or him, considering nothing’s dead yet.”

 

John stares at the grey haired inspector. “I’m confused.”

 

Lestrade shoots John a pointed look. When John still looks at him like he’s the unstable one in the room, Lestrade crumbles under the pressure to retreat. “Never mind, just… give it a go.”

 

“Give what a go?” John asks, but then Sherlock’s coming back over and Lestrade has dived out of the conversation and John is left to mull whatever that was over on his own.

 

*

 

“John.”

 

Behind his closed eyelids, John’s vision flickers between the blackness of sleep and the encroaching orange glow of reality. The sound of Sherlock’s voice is intruding, but welcome, familiar to John’s state of sleep.

 

“ _John_.”

 

Instead of acknowledging the unusually vivid sounds, John pushes closer to the cotton pillow while pulling the quilt closer to himself, creating a cocoon to capture the dream.

 

Despite the amount of warnings John has given Sherlock in the past, for various reasons, the detective quickly decides he’s desperate and gives up trying to wake John. Instead, he leans slightly over the bed, one knee rested on the edge of the mattress, and tries to nudge the phone from John’s lapse hand.

 

He almost manages it, the phone already swinging loosely from the clawed palm and edging toward a soft landing on the pillow. The eagerness brought on by the promise of success works in Sherlock’s downfall as he pushes forward onto the bed a little further and –

 

Suddenly, John has let go of the phone, discarded it carelessly in favour of his instincts taking hold of Sherlock’s wrist in the tight grip of a soldiers hands.

 

Sherlock feels his whole body tense and freeze, shocked by the sudden turn from John. When he slowly turns to look at his flat mate, the blonde is staring at him through the lamplight with furrowed features and glowering eyes. The taller man scrambles his brain for an explanation that will remove the expression from his friend’s face as immediately as possible. Instead, his mouth just drops open, empty while his hand is still caught.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

Sherlock blinks. John raises his eyebrows while his hand loosens but does not let go. The tension and adrenaline is slowly draining from his body, but the pounding of his heart against his rib cage is still pulsing through his ears and behind his eyes.

 

“I… needed your… phone.” The explanation is pathetic at best, Sherlock knows, but he’s crumbling under John’s stress.

 

“Sherlock, if you’re going to wake me, then – ”

 

“I need to turn on the lamp and talk to you until you wake up and I definitely shouldn’t touch you.” Sherlock is desperate to build his defence, and so does not cringe at his childish listing. “But I _tried_. I put the lamp on and I repeated your name countless times, and yet you reacted to nothing. Then, I assumed that I would be able to get what I needed without waking you at all.”

 

The corner of John’s mouth pinches as Sherlock stares at him, eyes wide as his voice is pleading, and John realises that he only ever hears such a tone directed towards him. Sherlock doesn’t plead, especially not in situations as petty as this. And yet, for John, for the sake of John calming down, right now he is.

 

“What do you need my phone for anyway?” John asks as he lets go of Sherlock and scrubs a hand down his drawn face. Sherlock pulls his arm away and rubs absently at the warm space left across his wrist.

 

“I have an urgent message I need to send someone.”

 

John licks his top lip and tries to ignore the amount of details Sherlock is obviously leaving out. “And why can’t you use your phone?”

 

“Recent… activities have left it temporarily out of service. I’ll get a new one soon, but soon isn’t soon enough.”

 

“And the home phone?”

 

“How am I supposed to text over the home phone?”

 

“Of course,” John says flatly, deciding that it’s too early for the speed at which Sherlock is trying to speak. His hand palms over the sheets until they feel the familiar cool plastic, which he then picks up and hands to his friend. “Just don’t break it.”

 

Ignoring John, Sherlock grabs the phone and plops down onto the edge of the bed. John favours slipping back down under the quilt over paying too much attention to whatever it is Sherlock is doing. Instead, he watches the figure of the detective in the low glow of the light as he taps the message into the screen. That is until the phone is slipped into the detective’s jacket pocket.

 

Sherlock then switches the lamp off and pushes himself up to stand. He has reached the doorway, the shadows of his long fingers wrapped around the frame, when he stops again. With vaguely forced courtesy he says, “Thank you.”

 

The manners are so unusual that John bothers with the drowsy, “You’re welcome,” even if the tone is questioning and his eyebrows are furrowed.

 

As the outline of the detective hesitates, body leaning slightly limp against the room’s entrance, John pushes himself up again slightly.

 

“You okay?”

 

Sherlock allows his head to turn toward the soldier in the bed. John watches the patches of inky outlines shift as Sherlock blinks and lets his tongue run across his bottom lip. The attention is heavy, like rain clouds churning with storms.

 

There is no specific trigger, but something in the moment snaps and then Sherlock is staring at the hallway again rather than at the patch on John’s neck which he can remember being tanned slightly darker than the collarbone leading down below it.

 

“I’ll see you in a few days,” Sherlock says, voice tight.

 

Before John gets the chance to question where the ‘few days’ of absence have come from, Sherlock escapes the crowded room and slams the door behind him. John is left in a darkness which he can only settle into as the edges of sleep melt whatever consciousness he’s gained from the exchange.

 

*

 

True to his word, Sherlock is gone for a few days.

 

On the third day John gets home from the clinic to find Sherlock playing his violin by the window.

 

There is new phone for John on the kitchen table, while Sherlock’s new phone lays silent beside him at the desk.

 

John doesn’t ask about the case, or the moment they shared in the darkness which had been eating away at him. It’s not unusual – communication seems to be one of their greatest downfalls in many respects.

 

Instead of doing anything to acknowledge the space between Sunday night and Wednesday, John makes them both tea and spends the evening in his chair as Sherlock plays endlessly for hours.

 

*

 

“ –  so the way I see it is, as long as I keep on trying, you know, keep at it and all that, I’ll make it. Because, like, it can’t be _that_ hard, right?” John shakes his head because through his drooped eyelids the stranger is looking like she’s expecting it. “Exactly! Other people have done it, so why can’t I? I mean, it’s going to take effort and training, but I’m young and I can handle it and still have nights like this, right?” John nods his head again and wishes the blonde in the crop top would stop saying ‘right’ so much and would just shut up about – well, truth be told, John couldn’t tell you any more about what the woman was talking about than he could tell you about the intricacies of engineering taken to build the Eiffel Tower; a topic which would, in fact, probably be more interesting, too.

 

Somewhere in the back of his brain dead mind, he registers that the song changes, and yet the sweating crowd on the dance floor barely falters. The heat swells up from the pit, beating across the concrete ceiling and drenching the rest of the club in roasting steam mixed with breathy words and alcohol.

 

John’s shirt – black, tight fitted and definitely nothing like he is used to, but courtesy of Sherlock’s ‘ _we’ve got to fit in_ ’ orders – is glued to his body along every muscle crease and fold of slightly bulging skin, and John wants nothing more than to get out of it, preferably somewhere less public, and definitely not with the girl who has been hopelessly but ruthlessly flirting with him for the past hour.

 

Thankfully, the woman in question is incredibly absorbed in the sound of her own voice, so John is free to flicker his eyes around the club in search of a returning familiar figure. Through the swarms of writhing people, it is harder than John would like.

 

“So, uh, got any plans for later?” And suddenly John’s attention snaps right back to the stranger beside him at the bar. There is not a single part of her stance that John likes right about now: from the drooped eyelids and the smirk, down to her ever inching forward invasion of John’s personal space and the smell of her breath somehow overpowering that of the club. John leans back automatically, one hand gripping the edge of the bar to keep him balanced on the stool as his mouth grapples for words that might make sense in the panic that sets as he tries to avoid a kiss. Damn Sherlock and his ‘ _playing along_ ’ rules.

 

“Like I said earlier,” John stumbles over his words, “I’m in a relationship.”

 

One lie. Sherlock won’t mind one measly lie, especially in situations as desperate as this. Apparently John’s admirer is persistent, though. She stops moving forward, but she doesn’t lean back from the ground she’s already covered.

 

“Well, she can’t be a very good girlfriend if she leaves you all alone to fend for yourself in a place like this. And besides,” the others voice drops to a low but predatorial growl, “she doesn’t have to know.” John suppresses the various urges to laugh or gag from the churning in his stomach brought about by the exchange.

 

Just as he’s about to spit out some more bullshit, he feels his stool twist with a sudden jolt and then Sherlock is there, standing between his legs, arms wrapped around his waist.

 

It takes a few seconds of shaking reality out to rid it of dust for John to realise that he is not imagining this. Sherlock is in fact right there, in all his tight black jeans and pristine waistcoat glory, and indeed has his hands hooked at the small of John’s back. He looks up to his detective friend for an explanation, only to find Sherlock shooting the full force of his deadly glare towards John’s admirer who stands in more skin than clothing.

 

“Who the fuck are you?” she snaps, trying to glare back but instead barely managing not to visibly cower.

 

“I’m the boyfriend,” Sherlock growls, and something shudders inside John at the absolute possessiveness in the detective’s voice. 

 

If Sherlock were to mention it later, John would use the excuse that he was just playing along as he wraps his arms around the other man and slips his hands into the jean’s back pockets; a place clear for both his admirer and the rest of the club to see. He would keep the fact that he was barely holding back the urge to ravish Sherlock right then and there to himself.

 

Sherlock’s voice had not been one to argue with, nor had his expression or the firm and coiled set to his shoulders, so it is no surprise that it takes barely a few words to scare the poor girl away. As she retreats back into the hoards of the club, muttering to herself as she goes, Sherlock keeps his eyes trained on the hunched back, the grey irises still fierce under the clubs fluorescents. John realises it is probably some of the best acting Sherlock has done in a long time, which is certainly saying something.

 

Eventually though, the dark curls turn back to the blonde, and John finds Sherlock smirking.

 

“Well, that went well.”

 

“For you maybe,” John grumbles, “You didn’t have to put up with her for the last hour.” Sherlock scoffs, a light-hearted laugh in the face of John’s irritation, and then John drops the annoyed act in favour of asking, “So, did you get everything you needed?”  

 

“Yup.” Sherlock’s voice is low and quiet in order to protect their cover story, but it also means his mouth is pressed against John’s ear, crushing so close that John can smell the unmistakable sent of experimental smoke, sweat and _Sherlock_. “Their computer system was shockingly easy to hack into. Dull. I’ve downloaded what we need and wiped the security cameras. They’ll never know we were here.”

 

Sherlock smiles, all pride and satisfaction, and John licks his bottom lip. There’s a pause in their small microcosm and suddenly John is acutely aware of the nerve endings stretched along the spaces where Sherlock’s arms touch his waist, where their bodies lean slightly together, and where Sherlock’s curls still brush against his sensitive cheek. He wonders why Sherlock hasn’t pulled away yet, but doesn’t mention it, choosing just to relish it instead, because if he says something then it might all end. His words are trapped in his throat again, held by his lungs, like a breath scattered and crushed into locked prisons of alveoli.  

 

“We should probably get going,” Sherlock murmurs eventually, and there’s a strange tint to his voice that John doesn’t recognise.

 

John gulps and nods, not trusting any other part of his body for fear of what it might do with its desperate urge to prevent Sherlock from breaking contact.

 

After Sherlock has let go and is leading the two of them through the crushing waves of people to the exit, John blames his imagination for the seconds just before their broken embrace where John was sure Sherlock pulled him closer.

 

*

 

John realises the second thing in the earliest hours of a Saturday, before the birds have begun to sing and before the sun has washed up against the shore of the stars.

 

Sherlock is quiet the whole way home from the club. There is something heavy swaying in the empty space between them in the back of the cab, and John’s hand twitches with the urge to see if he can break through it. Instead, he watches the cascade of city lights against the window and tries to focus on the movement of his lungs, despite the tightness like a coil which hasn’t dissipated for weeks now.

 

The white shirt Sherlock wears remains glued to him from sweat, but the black waistcoat still fits, snug against his figure, maintaining an otherwise pristine persona. John tries to ignore that he must look terrible in comparison, cloaked in slacking damp material, with crushed flat hair instead of Sherlock’s curled, twisted and dishevelled locks.  

 

That is it, John thinks. That’s what it is – Sherlock looks totally and utterly dishevelled, absolutely ruined with his top few buttons loose and much more hair than usual cloaking the hollows of his eyes; he looks delicious. That is the shadow in the space, the thing making John’s usual feelings ramp up so many gears until it is way beyond a gentle love that refuses to be breathed into life.

 

With a couple of blinks, John turns back towards the London running by his cab and focusses on the feeling of air circulating through his lungs, his veins, his slowly beating heart.

 

 _Thump_ , houses.

 

 _Thump_ , skyscrapers.

 

 _Thump_ , the Thames.

 

 _Thump_ , Tower Bridge.

 

 _Thump_ , Baker Street.

 

As usual, Sherlock is out of the cab in a beat, leaving John to pay the fare. By the time John is closing the front door behind him, Sherlock is out of sight.

 

When John arrives in the living room of 221B, Sherlock is stood in the dead centre of the carpet, staring at the horned skull on the wall in absolute stillness. John hovers in the doorway, a tether between him and the spot on the carpet stopping him from pulling away to take the oh-so-desired shower.

 

Outside the window the moon peeks over the roof tops, glowing white against the toxic coloured light pollution seeping across the black waters of the sky. Distantly, police sirens whir along concrete paths, through dirt bitten sewers and along the ceilings of the British city.

 

The soldier flexes his left hand.

 

“John.”

 

There’s that taint to Sherlock’s voice again, like something is caught in the nerve endings of Sherlock’s brain; something confusing but determined, something possessive but detached, something unknown and undecipherable.

 

However, when Sherlock turns around, John begins to see something in the shadows of his eyes and the pulled string of his bow mouth and the youth translated through his ruffled curls. He’s pale, suffocating on his thoughts, unable to breathe them into open space and refresh his lungs with new air.

 

Just like John.

 

This feels like it should be it, John thinks. This is the moment in the movies and the books and the songs. John can imagine it.

 

Sherlock will let the words tumble out of his mouth, the three little words, but before he even finishes them, John’s got his mouth over those perfect lips and is swallowing the emotion whole. The kiss will be forceful and passionate and desperate, like gasping. Then the clothes will be off, and John’s hands will be in that perfectly dishevelled hair, and Sherlock will be throwing everything off the desk so he can lift John off the floor and onto it until he can get that brilliant mouth over every sodding inch of his skin.

 

No. 

 

No, wrong.

 

Sherlock will open his mouth and breathe the words into the clear open space between them. They’ll hover in the lamplight like snowflakes settling as a first dusting over cobbled streets. And then with slow, relishing steps, Sherlock will meet him in the middle and lean down as John leans up to let their lips meet in a gentle kiss. It will be slow and careful but full of every word and thought and feeling John’s head has swirled with in the last few weeks, months, hell, years. Sherlock’s hands will slide around his waist, and he’ll card his fingers through those perfect locks, and the kiss will get deeper, with the slow touch of tongue and hot breath; not just a kiss of passion, but a kiss of life, as the snowfall of their emotions gathers at their feet.

 

No.

 

No, that’s wrong, too.

 

Sherlock won’t say anything. He’ll open his mouth, ready and willing, finally, but John will beat him to it. The words will burst from his mouth like the first grab for breath as he resurfaces. There will be a moment, a beat, a breath, and then Sherlock will smile; that full on, wide grin that John remembers from their first dinner at Angelo’s, through to every true and full laugh after. Then John will smile too and it will descend into laughter, full on belly laughter until they are tumbling into each other, barely keeping each other standing until they tumble into John’s chair, or Sherlock’s chair or, hell, the floor. And then they’ll be kissing, laughing and kissing and wheezing and whispering _I love you_ ’s over and over again into the space inside their souls that they had given each other a long time ago.

 

No. 

 

As it turns out, these are all wrong.

 

These ideas pass through John’s mind in the seconds that he finds himself staring into Sherlock’s crumbling resolve. So, trying to save the valuable moment, John opens his mouth in the hope of at least starting the way he’d imagined in option three. Sherlock’s eyes widen just a slight fraction in hope or fear or _something_ , waiting for John to initiate what neither of them could. John’s chest pounds, his lungs ache with the force of the gasp still clutched at the bottom of his diaphragm, and he thinks he might actually manage it. 

 

But when the words breathe from the depths of his throat, all he says is, “I need to take a shower.”

 

Sherlock visibly deflates, falls in on himself, or at least to the extent Sherlock does, anyway. A mere stranger may not notice the change, the slight shift in the angle of his eyebrows or the twist in the coil of his shoulders, but John is John, and John can see it as though watching through a microscope.

 

Instead of fixing it, John just descends into silence. He can’t help it. He’s drowning in desperation, in want, in need, in _love_ , and he can’t make a sound.

 

So, he turns away from his flat mate and heads to the bathroom. Peeling his shirt off his skin, John closes his eyes and tries to pull back the frayed edges of his imagined scenarios in the hope of at least enjoying those for a few more moments. But when he gets them back, they’re tainted, ruined, graffitied by reality. A reality which is, by no means, a work of Banksy.

 

While John stands under the pounding of the water, this time the good kind of heat swirling in steam around him and swallowing him whole, the ex-soldier remembers Lestrade’s words weeks ago.

 

 _You need to stop watching him like you’re in mourning_.

 

Because that’s what he’s been doing, isn’t it? Subconsciously, of course. He’s known from the start that it is hopeless, that _they_ are hopeless, deep down inside his own darkest depths. He is mourning what never has been, because it is _never_ going to be. Both he and Sherlock are stuck, suffocating on words, for once fearing the consequences of the unknown.

 

So much for the fearless, crime-fighting duo.

 

John turns in the shower and leans his head up toward the spray. The water cascades over his face, washing out his eyes, nostrils and mouth. Then, with his palms spread flat against the tiles, John comes to a new resolve as he focuses on breathing, one breath at a time.  

 

In, and out.

 

In, and out.

 

In. 

 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beginning quote from: I Wrote This For You, pleasefindthis


	3. Stage 3: Unconsciousness

**Stage 3: Unconsciousness**

*

 

_Forget the air. I’ll breathe you instead._

 

*

 

When John walks back into the living room, his hair is still wet, curling and dripping at the ends. There are damp patches in his t-shirt where he has forgotten to dry the droplets off his shoulders, and his jeans itch uncomfortably over his thighs from their interference with water.

 

Sherlock hasn’t moved; he stands, a solid being in the centre of the room which refuses to shift or sway against even the tide of John calling his name.

 

The night is ghostly in the flat. The moon is watching, floating through the window and above the world as a silent observer.

 

“Sherlock,” John tries again. His voice is quiet, but manages to intrude upon the delicate suffocation of silence which has gathered to its climax.

 

It doesn’t occur to John that he’s been moving forward until he finds himself beside Sherlock, barely a foot between them, the detective’s back within reach of John’s fingers, if they could only stretch out with the tiniest flicker of movement. Sherlock is stagnant, but John can feel Sherlock’s attention lift onto him like a sudden shift in the wind. John tries not to let the gust deter him from the certainty he’d achieved under the spray of the shower.

 

“This is a bad idea,” Sherlock says eventually, already sensing the direction the solider wishes to take the moment to. His voice ripples like a boulder tumbling from a mountain into a clear water lake.

 

Instead of replying, John moves his feet so he is facing Sherlock’s front rather than his back.

 

The man’s hair is still ruefully dishevelled, all knots and twists and random scraps of frizz which glow against the shadows of the darkness. This close, John can make out Sherlock’s eyes through the random strands which tumble down his forehead. His friend makes no move to stop him as John reaches up a single finger to push the hair out of the way, clearing the naked honesty and painful fear swirling in the blue flecks of the detective's eyes.

 

“Since when did something as dull as that stop you?” John whispers.

 

Sherlock doesn’t have an answer to John’s sound logic, and so has no reason to stop the blonde as he steps closer, heavy against the worn but soft carpet, and leans up. John is moving now outside of any will of his own. His body has taken control, his lungs tired and desperate and scrambling for air.

 

He thinks he reaches the surface with the press of his lips against Sherlock’s, soft and chaste, but hesitant and shivering.

 

Instead of experiencing a gasp of relief or a sudden rush of fresh air and clarity through aching lungs, the desperation merely dissolves. It scatters into pieces which fade into the thin beams of the moon. It falls away from John’s body like droplets drying naturally in the sun. It melts into nothingness like thoughts slipping away from the mind, as the body stumbles and falls off the edge into unconsciousness.  

 

Sherlock’s lips are different to how John imagined them; the expectation of cold, firm lips which matched the familiar expressions set into his features are disappointed. Only, John doesn't mind, because it's in such a way that makes John’s heart flip while his body ebbs towards the other man, as though he were trying to climb inside the fabric of clothing, inside the great lips and the great mind that cascades through the beautiful mouth. If anything, John would have to say that he felt privileged. Such closeness is not an experience Sherlock shares with many, anyone, really – this is something John just _kn_ _o_ _w_ _s_. Except, now, he is sharing it with John, allowing the soldier to taint his thoughts and sensations and physical existence. More than just allowing, in fact, he is personally encouraging it.

 

Above the flooding nirvana of Sherlock’s lips and the taste of air and tea and _Sherlock,_ John is dimly aware of the trickling sensations over the rest of his body: Sherlock pressing his body against John’s, Sherlock carding his hands through John’s hair, Sherlock pulling John closer by the small of his back, Sherlock, an everywhere sensation of being and perfection.

 

Underneath his own fingertips John can feel the other man: the slightest tease of stubble over his jaw, the tough, soft curling knots over his head, the stiffness of his shirt and the warmth radiating through it. There is something dreamlike about the sensations, as though he’s slipped inside his head and is floating, drifting through the swirling calm at the eye of the storm. The water around him is gathering, twirling into a whirlpool, controlled willingly by the force of the hurricane that is Sherlock Holmes.

 

John doesn’t mind, so Sherlock keeps dragging John closer, like a dream capturing a man lost to unconsciousness.

 

*

 

For once, things change around Baker Street.

 

To anyone else they may seem like the most minute shifts in behaviour; such tiny changes that there hardily seems a point in acknowledging them. Except, John understands exactly how Sherlock works, which means that with every slight brush of their hands, every breath ghosted over bare skin and every catch of the eyes, John can feel the lapping of shared emotion brushing against his love.

 

And when they are alone, things are so, so different.

 

The dreamlike sensation of floating does not dissipate.

 

*

 

Mrs Hudson is the first to notice the change.

 

The woman has such a natural presence within Baker Street that sometimes, on the rare occasions where she is particularly quiet, and the more common occasions where the two boys of the upstairs flat find themselves engrossed within their work, her entrance can fail to be noticed.

 

It is for this reason that she catches Sherlock and John at some peculiar behaviour. It could have been worse, John decides later, after finding out she’s seen them, since she could have caught them at something genuinely explicit, in which case John thinks he would most likely have melted into a puddle of mortification.

 

Instead she ambles up to the flat, for once neither humming nor nattering, and walks first into the kitchen. When she glances towards the living room, Sherlock is bent over John’s shoulder staring at the screen of the laptop, so close that his curls brush John’s blonde hair.

 

The room around them has exploded into paper and pictures and notes, all mostly seeming indecipherable amongst the drowning chaos, but there is something solid and still around the two as though they sit as an anchor within the mess.

 

Mrs Hudson can’t hear Sherlock’s whispering voice from where she stands, but whatever he says makes John smile in the same way the sky glows orange in the summer and fireworks spark unignorably amongst the stars. Sherlock rolls his eyes at John’s reaction in the way that only he manages for John – both fond and exasperated – only this time Mrs Hudson catches on to how little Sherlock tries to hide such fond attachments.

 

John clearly sees it too, because then he pecks Sherlock’s cheek. The detective is taken off guard for a second, but when he looks directly towards the doctor's mischievous expression with an upwards turn tugging at his mouth, Mrs Hudson sees The Something Different comfortably slotted between them.

 

In the kitchen the landlady is silent and still as she watches Sherlock dart forward with a kiss. John lifts his hands to the other’s cheeks, laptop and work forgotten in favour of deepening the connection. Mrs Hudson then grins to herself and leaves as quietly as she entered, allowing the scene behind her continue to flow with the easy affection of two people who have finally let themselves Be in every way they have ever wanted.

 

*

 

The true test of Going Public for Sherlock and John comes when they approach the issue of crime scene etiquette.

 

Since neither are particularly expressive people, the obvious approach to take would to be to ignore their new relationship boundaries outside the safe walls of Baker Street. This is an approach that works perfectly for the both of them at the start. Sherlock continues to be a demanding, quick and at times mean witted detective, married to his work, while John continues to put up with it with nothing but a frown, a grumble and a title of The Friend.

 

There are times when John catches himself perhaps staring at Sherlock with a look that is a little too smitten, but thankfully these aren’t terribly damaging. In John’s mind, this is for two reasons:

 

1) Sherlock, being a much better actor, manages to blatantly behave as though there is absolutely no involvement between them beyond the platonic, and

 

                2) Being a trained soldier – and, by extension, killer – left no one willing to approach the possibly threatening Watson with an accusation that may be taken the wrong way.

 

                There is in fact a third reason that has not occurred to John, even though it happens to be the one reason for most of Scotland Yard ignoring his hopelessly infatuated behaviour:

 

                3) They all noticed a very long time ago, and the gossip has gotten boring by now.

 

                That is at least until the progress of the rumours jumps forward as Lestrade, accompanied by Donavon, intrudes upon the safe haven that is Baker Street and witnesses proof beyond puppy-eyed staring and brushes of contact which could be classed as being a little too close.

 

*

 

“I really don’t think we need him,” Donavon moans again, loudly.

 

Lestrade frowns as he takes quick steps towards the upstairs flat. Even the clip of Sally’s heels behind him sound irritated, as though the woman’s clothing has absorbed her anti-Sherlockian ideology.

 

“This case is weeks old now and we’re running out of time; it’s the only logical solution.”

 

“Do not tell me this is ‘logical’. As a rule, Sherlock is about the least logical solution to any problem.”

 

“What? How? The man’s whole universe revolves around logic.”

 

On the landing, Lestrade instinctively turns towards the kitchen. Sally’s voice is still behind him, her steps slowing in reluctance.

 

“Because, how is it logical to make every other person on the case actually want to be the next target just so they don’t – ”

 

Lestrade walks into the kitchen, having expected the detective to be working on some twisted experiment. He doesn’t notice Donavon’s abrupt halt in speech.

 

Oddly the kitchen is clear, void of any mystery meats, invading mould, or even the less menacing sight of clean lab equipment ready in preparation for the next disaster. Lestrade takes a second to review his state of mental health when he finds that the sight of the Baker Street kitchen looking like an actual kitchen to be the disturbing discovery, rather than the usual slavering of organs.

 

Meanwhile, in the living room, Donavon has come to her own startling discovery.

 

Although she’s been one to tease Watson about the rumours of his less-than-innocent emotions towards his flatmate, she’s never been one to wholly believe them. Sure, John has a tendency to watch Sherlock as though the man has personally carved out the patterns of the world from the basic scrap material of Pangaea, but John Watson, with all his ex-soldier, hard-ass, gun-holstering muscle, has always been too glaringly heterosexual for her to believe he’s ever going to do anything about it.

 

This, however, is the day where she admits she’s wrong. She doesn’t even feel that bitter about it either, because, dear God, it’s _hilarious_ , and she already knows she is never going to let this one go.

 

Lestrade approaches slowly, silently arriving beside her, staring in the same direction as he comes to see what she has. Until it suddenly registers, and then he’s trying to look anywhere _but_.

 

“Well, this is unexpected,” the inspector says, and the sergeant just nods, dazed, if a little captivated by the surprisingly defined muscles carved along a certain doctors back.

 

There is a disjointed pause as the two on the sofa gently stumble into consciousness.

 

Sherlock being Sherlock, he immediately notices the presence of the two standing in the doorway. He shifts just enough to glare in a way which expresses vehemently that if they weren’t to leave now he would do something so extremely shuddersome they would probably dread the prospect of ever entering 221B again. 

 

The doctor sprawled over him is a lot less aware of his surroundings. Instead of reacting to Sherlock’s sudden stiffness, he merely buries his head further into Sherlock’s neck, too comfortable to become aware of anything beyond the man currently acting as a pillow and a mattress rolled into one. Sally raises an eyebrow as John hums out a little happy noise that under no circumstances would she have ever thought him capable of making.

 

When Sherlock still doesn’t pull his arms closer from their loose position sprawled over him, John begins to notice something is wrong, and his eyes flutter open, coming to a direct stare towards the two friends.

 

His reaction is positively comedic in Sally’s opinion.

 

A few seconds tick by in silence as everyone waits for the doctor to catch up with events, and then the man flails, all surprise and mortification wrapped up into a package of clumsy, flapping limbs and red cheeks. Sherlock lets out an accidental _oomph_ as John hits him in the stomach while trying, and failing, to not fall off the sofa. It somewhat ruins the threatening glare which had been the only thing holding in Sally’s outright laughter.

 

Once John is standing, pillow covering his most sensitive areas – and Dear God when did his life become a fucking RomCom – the sergeant ends up stifling her laughter with a hand over her mouth, because when John wants it to be, it turns out his glare can be just as powerful as Sherlock’s. Perhaps more so, just from it being so rare. It is good enough to overpower the red blush still swelling along his skin, at least.

 

Despite showing even more skin than his flatmate, Sherlock shows no intention of moving from his lavish position across the sofa. In fact, he looks more like he’s having just as much trouble as Sally when it comes to not laughing at the blushing soldier.

 

“Can we help you?” John snaps eventually, his patience having been burnt into flames of embarrassment instantly.

 

Lestrade pointedly keeps his eyes leveled with John’s and no lower. Sally makes no such effort, instead blatantly smirking at the impressive hickey’s over John’s skin and reassigning Sherlock’s label in her head from ‘Virgin’ to ‘Where The Hell Did He Learn Stuff Like That’.

 

“They’re stuck with the case,” Sherlock sighs from the sofa, “Obviously.”

 

John continues to address Lestrade as though it were the inspector who had answered. “Well, we both have phones.”

 

John suddenly notices Sally’s eyes and his muscle instinctively tighten in defence, as though that would maintain any of his respect at all. 

 

“Neither of you were picking up.”

 

“Did you not think there might have been a reason for that?”

 

“Well…” Lestrade tries to search for something else to say, but apparently can’t get his mind to catch up with his mouth.

 

Sally decides it might be apt time to speak up. “Well, we weren’t exactly expecting to walk in on you two morons practically fucking, now, were we?”

 

It takes all of twenty two seconds for John to shove the two members of Scotland Yard out the door, locking it swiftly and loudly behind them.

 

*

 

Most members of Scotland Yard can’t figure out how he does it, but somehow John manages to force Sherlock not to take part in any crime solving for a whole months, making their lives more difficult than they’d grudgingly admit.

 

That is until Sally finally let’s the big secret loose, and then suddenly everyone has a pretty good idea how the solider has achieved such a feat. They try not to spend too much time thinking about how it probably involves a disturbing lack of clothing.

 

*

 

“How’s Sherlock?” Sally asks John the next time she actually gets the chance at a crime scene, but the doctor pointedly ignores her. “You know, I never took you for the type.”

 

Lestrade stiffens at her tone, and the soldier frowns.

 

“I’m not gay,” John feels the need to re-establish all over again, and the sergeant cocks an eyebrow.

 

“No, you’re just screwing your best friend. Who is a guy, by the way, in case you haven’t noticed?”

 

John opens his mouth to say something else – something angry too, going by his expression. “Just because – ” he starts, but then Sherlock’s voice is calling his name, and John, sensing a bad ending to whatever argument he would box himself into, chooses to escape.

 

Once he’s gone Sally turns to Lestrade and jokes, “Someone better call the coast guard in Egypt, because that man is drowning in denial.”

 

Lestrade, who has just prepared himself to give a lecture about inappropriate work conversations, ends up sighing and rolling his eyes, resigning himself to the fact that Sally is a hopeless cause when it comes to her feelings towards the Baker Street pair.

 

*

 

                Sherlock’s laptop suddenly collapses onto his typing fingers and he feels his eyebrows furrow. He refrains from sighing as he glares up towards the smirking soldier who currently has his fingers spread over the lid of the computer, keeping it closed.

 

                “What are you doing?”

 

                Instead of answering, John’s spare hand appears from behind him to show the three DVDs he’s chosen for their Friday night. Sherlock thought John had given up with the ‘movie night’ idea after the detective had effectively ruined _Goldfinger_ a few weeks ago by narrating the entire two hours with various plot holes and instances of failed logic. Instead, Sherlock is being yet again subjected to the consequences of John’s stubbornness.

 

                “No.”

 

                John doesn’t frown or groan. John doesn’t even look disappointed. Instead, he feels the need to droop away from the table in such an elaborate display of loose limbs that Sherlock has no choice but to keep his eyes trained on the man in the mere hope of figuring out what he is doing.

 

                “Well then,” John says, no, _moans,_ as he saunters towards the kitchen, “I suppose I’ll have to go upstairs and watch them in bed, all _alone_. A shame, really, considering how many things one can get up to in bed. But, nope, it’s going to be just me, _alone… all night_ …”

 

                At some point, John reaches the door, and instead of walking through it, he leans up against the frame, all damsel-in-distress-longing-and-hopeless style. Sherlock is torn between many reactions, ranging from rolling his eyes at the dramatics through to ravishing John right there from the mere ideas of what the man is hinting to.

 

                “All. Alone,” John emphasises again to the wooden doorframe, but he barely finishes his final line before he is swept off his feet, literally, by a Sherlock who is not nearly as exasperated with the theatrics as he would put on.

 

                Happy with his success, John chuckles as Sherlock nips at his lips, mumbling, “Idiot,” fondly around kisses. 

 

                They never do watch the DVD’s John picked for that night. Instead they manage to fill the time with some activities that are a lot more interesting, so John really doesn’t mind.

 

*

 

John smiles as he stares at the candle, thinking back to their first dinner together. Sherlock catches his eye, and even though they’re in a different restaurant, and their meal is interrupting a case, Sherlock smiles, and it’s genuine and happy in every way.

 

“I hear that the duck here is held in extremely high regard, should you be unsure of what you would like to pick.”

 

John eyes the menu which holds a total of two selection choices and tries not to gape at the price.

 

“Oh, relax, would you? This is on me.”

 

“But… why?”

 

John flicks through dates in his head and tries to figure out if he’s been the one to miss any important dates, whether they be birthdays or, perhaps more shockingly considering their rule of ignoring such things as Birthdays, anniversaries.

 

Sherlock shrugs as he takes a sip of champagne. “Why not? Am I not allowed to treat the most important person in my life to a meal out every so often?”

 

“But we’re in the middle of a case?”

 

“Yes, and you were hungry. You had a strong distaste for the prospect of your usual fish and chips, so, considering the owner here owes me a favour, I thought now might be a good time to use it.”

 

“Have you helped out every restaurant owner in the vicinity of London?”

 

Chuckling and shaking his head, Sherlock says, “Of course not. My reach stretches right up through Essex and even as far West as Bristol.”

 

John rolls his eyes and mutters, “Of course,” but there’s this swaying ache in his chest that kind of feels like gentle waves filling his heart with a soothing, sleepy calm of perfection.

 

*

 

“So, remind me again, why are we going to Wales?”

 

John huffs as he dumps the suitcases on the pavement. Sherlock bustles out of the flat and scowls at John when he sees the blonde is staring at him, expecting an answer instead of just putting their things in the boot of the car parked at the curb.

 

“For the case, John,” Sherlock growls, all grouchy impatience mixed with excitement, “Obviously.”

 

“Obviously,” John agrees, rolling his eyes, having no idea what ‘case’ this happens to be since he only arrived home from a conference that morning.

 

Sherlock is already throwing himself in the passenger seat though, map unfolded across his half of the front window, so John just shakes his head and puts their things in the boot, hoping to God that Sherlock has packed him some sensible clothes.

 

*

 

“We need to stop at Tesco before we leave London.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because we need custard.”

 

“Why?”

 

“For the case.”

 

John cocks an eyebrow at the traffic crawling in front of him and decides he really doesn’t want to ask the main question in his head, and so asks another instead.

 

“Why can’t we just get custard in Wales?”

 

“I’m working on the assumption that such luxuries are only available in civilised communities.”

 

John blinks. “Sherlock – ”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Never mind.”

 

*

 

They stop at Tesco. Sherlock forces John to carry several different brands of custard through several trips that result in the entire back seat finding itself covered in tins and boxes.

 

John still does not ask.

 

*

 

“John.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“The country side is dull.”

 

John glances to the man beside him.

 

Sherlock is staring somewhat forlornly out the window at the passing scenery, eyes rolling over the grassy hills stretching out into the distance as though he were being ordered here by the work of punishment, rather than by the work of his own obsessive tendencies towards mysteries.

 

“What exactly were you expecting?” John asks, fingers flexing around the wheel as he focuses back on the thin, winding road ahead.

 

“I don’t know, but does it have to be so… _green_?”

 

*

 

By the time they have almost reached their destination in North Wales, John has considered turning around and going home twice, breaking up with Sherlock four times, and killing his boyfriend eight times.

 

The solider finds pride in the fact that at least he thought of eight _different_ methods of committing murder, three of which, according to Sherlock, wouldn’t get him caught.

 

*

 

Sherlock stares at the small double bed as though it has personally offended him.

 

John stares at the portrait of The Virgin Mary over the bed as though he has already offended _it_ with just the idea of what he had hoped to do to Sherlock in said bed that night, after having been apart for a week.

 

*

 

The highly, _highly_ religious owner of the B &B comes to their room to personally introduce herself.

 

Sherlock gives her a twenty five minute lecture on why religion is an exploitive fallacy that might as well have been designed by the bourgeoisie for all the delusionally controlling myths it forces people to submit to.

 

The elderly woman calls the ranting man adorable and actually _pinches his cheeks_ before turning to John and offering them to join her for tea. Finding it difficult to stifle the laughter brought on by Sherlock’s gape, John agrees and the sweet lady bustles away with a smile on her face, not at all offended.

 

“I am _not_ adorable,” Sherlock snaps.

 

“Of course not,” John says, mock-seriously.

 

The detective glares.

 

*

 

After somehow making it through forty minutes worth of tea and cakes with the old lady and her less considerate husband, John sees something behind Sherlock’s resolve snap, and so quickly excuses them.

 

Sherlock is still grumpy, despite having now left. As soon as John even just suggests, “So, what about the case – ”, all else is forgotten, and the delighted, engrossed grin is back again.

 

*

 

 

“John.”

 

 

 

“ _John._ ”

 

 

 

“John, my toes are cold.”

 

Internally, John sighs. Externally, he tries extra hard to act as though he were still asleep.

 

“John, my toes are cold, and I can’t feel my nose.”

 

“Just ignore it, Sherlock,” John eventually mutters. When finally accepting that Sherlock isn’t going to give up, he continues, “You already have most of the blankets.”

 

This is true. Through the progress of the night, Sherlock has slowly absorbed most of the quilts and blankets over the bed, meaning that by this point, John is covered by merely a single quilt, and is really very irritated, along with also feeling very cold.

 

Next to him, Sherlock mutters under his breath and shifts around beneath the heavy covering of material. Even with the slightest of movements, the bed frame squeaks bloody murder, and John grimaces and longs to be back at Baker Street.

 

Even once the other man settles, John can hear the cogs turning as the bristling sleeplessness prickles from the detective. The soldier’s eyes open and he stares at the splotches of darkness on the ceiling, waiting.

 

He doesn’t have to wait long.

 

 “How can you possibly expect me to sleep in these conditions? And during a case! This is utterly ludicrous.”

 

“It’s not my fault that people actually _sleep_ in the country side,” John points out, “No one’s going to talk to you until morning, so you might as well sleep. Besides, it was your idea to come to Wales.”

 

“Well I thought this was a nine.”

 

“Is it not a nine?”

 

“It might be an eight… at a push.”

 

Still snappy from the untimely awakening, John’s expression furrows and his voice is low and cranky. “Regardless, I’m not going to drive back right now, so just try and get some sleep, would you?”

 

“Oh, no, I’m not suggesting we leave.”

 

“Then why are you complaining so much?”

“I’m complaining that you’re forcing me to sleep.”

 

“Well, clearly I’m not, otherwise you would be asleep right now, and I wouldn’t be suffering through this conversation.”

 

Hoping that perhaps the pause means John has successfully broken through Sherlock’s irritable insistence, the blonde shuts his eyes again and tries to bury himself further into the few quilts he has. The bed squeals and dips as Sherlock turns on his side, and then John is subjected to the feeling of two deep orbs burning holes into the side of his tired face.

 

John chooses to ignore them.

 

When Sherlock finally speaks again, his voice is very quiet, almost nervous. “I’m still very cold, John.”

 

Huffing out a calming breath, John raises one arm to give Sherlock space to move, and Sherlock immediately dives beneath it to wrap himself around the soldier, his head resting on the other man’s chest. John smiles, because it is adorable, no matter what the detective himself thinks. It takes a second for John to realise this is exactly what Sherlock had wanted from the beginning, and when he finally does, the blonde wraps his arms tightly around the thinly cotton clad man and buries his nose in the soft curls, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. 

 

Against his chest, John feels Sherlock smile.

 

The blonde is too engrossed in the beating of the other man’s breathing to notice when he is pulled back beneath the surface of sleep.

 

*

 

“Well that was tedious.”

 

“I don’t know. I thought it was alright.”

 

Sherlock eyes the grinning blonde in the corner of his vision as he walks, hands in pockets, down the tiny, wet lane. The day is somehow both bright and drizzly, green and grey, and Sherlock misses the clean monochrome of the city almost as much as he misses seeing John smile as he wakes up to the sound of Sherlock quietly playing the violin on the bed.

 

“You’re getting far too much free tea out of this trip,” Sherlock mutters.

 

“You’re point? It’s not my fault if you don’t want to drink it as all these lovely people offer it.”

 

“They don’t even have any information to offer. What is it about the countryside that makes people invite strangers in to their homes for a ‘ _chat’,_ despite having little more to talk about than Mrs Green winning the local dog competition?”

 

“It’s nice for Mrs Green,” John defends, frowning. The woman had been so proud, her poodle sitting regal by her leg on the flowery sofa.

 

“She’s the only one who entered!”

 

The frown lines on Sherlock’s expression reveal his frustration, and so John jogs a couple of steps to catch up and then tugs on Sherlock’s arm until the other man’s hand is free of fabric, so the doctor can lace their fingers together. The detective’s expression softens, but the irritation still crashes like waves against the weatherly dark cliffs of his eyes.

 

“Hey,” John murmurs, “Cheer up.”

 

Sherlock finds it hard to understand why the phrase ‘cheer up’ was ever created, since it did nothing to actually get people to ‘cheer up’. But John is looking at him with those eyes and those wrinkles of worry in his expression and the frown on his mouth that John only lets slip when he’s really tired and really not paying attention, so Sherlock yanks him gently closer by the hand and bumps their shoulders together. The action of comforting companionship is enough to quell the surfacing splotches of John’s worry, and so they walk in silence for the next few minutes.

 

“Would you ever move to the countryside?” Sherlock asks eventually, and John is a little surprised, mostly by the initial image of him and Sherlock walking along roads like this regularly, scurrying back into tiny cottages with gardens and low ceilings and warm fireplaces and real tea and –

 

“I don’t know… maybe.” John thinks he does well to hide the sudden bloom of longing inside him, because while the reality probably would be nothing like what he imagines, the painting in his head is so, so perfect.

 

“I think I would like bees.”

 

John feels his eyebrows shoot further up his forehead, but when he looks over, his partner is being completely serious. “Bees?”

 

“Yes. Bees.”

 

“Bees and a cottage in the countryside?”

 

“… Yes.”

 

With nothing but the rhythmic tapping of shoes against wet pavement being the only thing to interrupt them, John watches Sherlock and smiles, because Sherlock looks a little shy and uncertain, even though the more John thinks about it, there’s something about the image of Sherlock and open space and nature that kind of _fits_ in the most unexpected way.

 

“Well,” John says, eyes settling back on the next cottage they are coming to approach, “At least the neighbours won’t be coming round to ask what the hell the latest explosion just was.”

 

When the detective turns his eyes toward the grinning blonde, analysing the response for all it’s worth, they’re no longer hard cliff edges, but warmth like molten, steaming love.

 

*

 

“Still only an eight?” John edges playfully in bed that night, trying to be humorous.

 

There are about 4 centimetres of space between their bodies, as though leaving room for the glare of the portrait above the bed. Sherlock absently glares in its direction for making John so uncomfortable, but there is little else he can do. Even when he had tried to take it down to hide it while John was in the shower, the soldier had merely exited the bathroom ten minutes later, still dripping with a towel around his waist, and dug the frame from behind the drawers to put it back again.  

 

“Barely,” Sherlock scoffs, “More like a six. Or a five.”

 

John’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. Surely if it were only a six Sherlock would have solved it by now?

 

“I know who did it, John.” The strength of the detective’s eye roll virtually swirls the shadows against the ceiling.

 

“Well then, who did?”                                

 

“Mrs Green,” Sherlock says, “Obviously.”

 

“Obviously,” John agrees, although he is clueless as to why. It’s too late and he’s too tired to do little else, especially to listen to Sherlock’s extravagant explanation, so agreeing is easiest. Sherlock knows all of this, and so is silent beside him.

 

“Did you mean it about the bees?” John asks eventually, softly, like a draft under the door. Sherlock shivers and John moves a little closer; subtly, but of course Sherlock notices.

 

“Of course.”

 

“I like it… the idea of it, I mean.”

 

“Me too.”

 

The silence of the room is filled by the drag of John’s hair against the fabric of the pillow as he turns toward Sherlock, and Sherlock is suddenly aware of the lack of sounds to fill the empty space between them; no sirens or voices or engines, just them and the occasional owl.

 

“Can I ask you a question?” Sherlock’s voice shakes, nervous.

 

There is a crinkle between John’s eyes that Sherlock can recognise even in the darkness, the expression so familiar, despite Sherlock wishing it weren’t. “Of course.”

 

“Why are you still so vehement when reassuring people that you are not gay?”

 

Something kicks in John that feels like breath getting caught in the throat. “What do you mean?”

 

Sherlock looks up at the ceiling. “I know you’re not gay, John. Everyone knows. But you don’t have to behave so insulted every time someone makes the mistake of thinking you are… it’s not exactly an unjustified assumption.”

 

“I’m not – ” John doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to fix the sudden fret.

 

For a brief moment, the soldier wonders where this attitude of Sherlock’s has come from. However, like his brain is rolling its eyes all Sherlocklian style while flicking through a slideshow of ‘ _this is why, doofus’_ , John realises. With the amount of people they had met through the hours of that day alone, John hadn’t exactly been the most… comfortable of life partners. Sherlock, having seen so many wonderful, dully happy couples, must have spent the whole day comparing their openness to John’s own subconscious restrictions of affection.

 

“I want to be something you want to show off,” Sherlock says softly, sadly, and something swallows John’s insides with a cold wash of water.

 

The blonde doesn’t say anything at all.

 

*

 

Sherlock sleeps that night. John doesn’t.

 

At some point in the depths of blackness, John curls himself around Sherlock’s icy back and whispers into the skin of his neck, “I need you to be patient with me.”

 

John continues to not sleep and hopes that it’s not just in his imagination when the ice thaws.

 

*

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beginning quote from: I Wrote This For You, pleasefindthis (yes again shhh)


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